


One Hot Summer in Chicago

by scullyslash_archivist



Category: E.R., The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-09-09
Updated: 1998-09-09
Packaged: 2018-11-20 03:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11327418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyslash_archivist/pseuds/scullyslash_archivist
Summary: Dana Scully meets ER doctor Maggie Doyle and begins to question her beliefs about herself...





	One Hot Summer in Chicago

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [ScullySlash](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Scully_Slash_Archive), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works.. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [ScullySlash's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/scullyslash/profile).

 

One Hot Summer in Chicago by Adriana

DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations are the creations and property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Corporation as well as John Wells and NBC Broadcasting company and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no money shall be made with this piece of fiction. I can only hope that the aforementioned can find it in their hearts to forgive this fan for taking hours out from watching their show and using their tie-in products to create and showcase a not-for-profit piece of work. To them, I say...please don't hurt me!  
This work portrays a mature relationship (emotional and sexual) between two women. If you are underage or offended by such things, please go elsewhere. There's a great big web out there for you to explore. Synopsis: Dana Scully meets ER doctor Maggie Doyle and begins to question her beliefs about herself...  
RATING: NC-17

* * *

One Hot Summer in Chicago

Dana Scully:

You live your life according to the mores and folkways of regimentation and control that you have always known, and even your token attempts at rebellion--secretly smoking your mother cigarettes, getting your ears pierced, that type of thing--are non-threatening in their sheer normalcy. You live your life this way, and even the greatest leap of faith your choose to make, merely takes you from one realm of professionalism to another. You are an FBI agent rather than a medical practitioner. You've traded scrubs for a suit. The safety serves you well. You are a professional with all the benefits in salary and security that it affords.

And then one day you learn that you have a cancerous growth on your brain. And you continue with the normalcy of your life. It expands, attacks your body, resists all attempts to combat it, and finally clenches its fingers around your throat. In the end, you are saved by a miracle.

That is when your learn that you have already been dead. Long before the cancer brought you to edge, you have closed your world and shunned what did not fit within your tiny parameters--even if they spoke to very core of your being. And what else is death than the denial of life and all that it brings?

That is when you begin to question. That is when you face what you never had the nerve to face (you've already almost died, what more is there to fear?). That is when the number of days available to you makes you act impulsively and honestly.

Like facing impossible romances.

Yet here we are, with the steady throb of traffic leaking through the partially-opened window. I sit up look at the clock, try to plan my day. I hear the shifting behind me, the rustling of sheets, before I feel the strong arms close around my midsection. A cheek presses against my left shoulder-blade. I rotate my head and nuzzle sleep-matted hair as best I can. Its scent reminds me of the previous night, of all that we did, and the naked body, out of view, waiting for me. Waiting for one more communion before our days begin.

Strong hands slide up my body until they've cupped my breasts. I whisper my lover's name, and she whispers mine.

Thursday, July 7th County General Emergency Room Chicago, Illinois

In summer, things happen fast. It was a rule of law-enforcement. In winter, an occurrence becomes an incident with the slow inexoribility of two ships colliding. In summer, though, they exploded like popcorn in sizzling in oil. A car accident becomes an argument, becomes a shooting becomes a riot in less than an hour. People react, move, take action, think later.

Scully saw the same thing happening here and herself took action to prevent it.

"Stay back!" she shouted to the Hispanic nurse who was engrossed in the chart she held and currently walking into the kill zone. The man in scrubs standing over Mulder's bed moved faster than Scully would have ever guessed, spinning behind a cart of equipment and grabbing the nurse by the throat. Scully stepped to her right, still sighting down the slide of her Sig/Saur P-228, keeping the blade/trench package held fast over the man's left eye.

He hoisted the nurse up in front of him. She screamed and kicked, her clipboard clattering on the linoleum tiles, her head of glossy black hair suddenly obscuring Scully's aim. "Don't!" Scully shouted. The man backed up a few steps, still holding the yelping, wriggling nurse in front of him. "You're not walking out of here, so just put her down!"

But the man continued back a few steps. Scully advanced on him, looking for an exposed area--a shoulder, a few inches of skull, anything. Then he threw the nurse forward and spun. Scully saw a flat, black automatic in his hand and she cursed herself. He was never planning to use the nurse as a hostage, just a shield to buy him enough time to draw his own gun.

She lunged as the shots cracked above her. The gurney next to her exploded in a pale shower of plastic stuffing. Dimly, she was aware of screaming around her. Scully ignored it. She rolled into a doorway, rose to a crouch and fired two shots that missed and tore chunks of plaster out of the doorway the man was running through. The doors slammed shut behind him. Scully bolted, hit the door with her shoulder, and found herself in the blazing heat of the parking lot. Around her, ambulances, cars, motorcycles with helmeted riders all circulated on the shimmering asphalt. She heard helicopters above her. And the man was gone.

Scully decocked her pistol, headed back to the ER.

"Freeze!"

She'd been expecting this. Hooking her index finger through the trigger-guard, Scully let the gun hang from her open palm as she held up her hands and said, "I'm an FBI agent. I'm reaching for my identification." She pulled her creds from her coat pocket with her left hand, then turned to face the cop/security guard.

Except it was neither of them.

A young woman stood in a weaver stance the doorway, holding a compact Smith & Wesson in a firm, two-handed grip. She wore scrubs under a white coat and had a stethoscope was draped over her neck. Scully blinked. She was being covered by a doctor.

"My partner was the drugged victim was rolled in here a few hours ago."

The doctor looked like she was considering this, but the gun didn't waver. "Put your piece on the hood of that car and come over to me."

Scully sighed. Adrenaline was frazzling her nerves and her patience was suffering because of it. She put the P-228 on the hood next to her and walked toward the doctor. She was attractive, Scully thought, and looked perfectly capable of blowing a hole through her chest.

"Happy?" Scully asked as she held her creds close to the doctor's face.

The fiery eyes narrowed a little, but the gun dropped to her side. "FBI, huh?"

Scully nodded, tight-lipped.

"Maggie Doyle, nice to meet you." She switched the gun into her left hand, so she could extend her right to Scully.

"Right," Scully said.

* * *

DATE: 7 July 1998 SUBJECT: Investigation of toxic compound in Chicago, Illinois AGENT OF RECORD: Scully, Dana C. Badge #: ACC-109901876

The investigation into the compound which incapacitated three dockworkers for the Sunco Shipping company has come to a final, if not necessarily satisfying conclusion. Agent Fox Mulder, acting on the tip from a Confidential Informant found the source of the compound as a leaking containment canister aboard the S.S. Darcy's Dream--a cargo ship for the aforementioned shipping company.

My examination of compound (see attachment #2) found it to be a rough amalgamation of terrestrial and unknown biological matter. Its effects are similar to those witnessed in victims exposed to the "blood" of an extra-terrestrial race Agent Mulder and I have been encountering on and off for the past three years. Agent Mulder himself was exposed to this compound on date 2-24-96 in the Arctic (see report XF--4565553).

In the course of our investigation, we traced the procurement and transportation of this compound to a senior executive at Sunco, one David Lessington. During the course of our investigation, Lessington vanished. A search of his residence in the city of Wilmette led to Agent Mulder being exposed to this compound in aerosol form--apparently a trap set for the two of us.

Agent Mulder is recovering County General hospital. While still in their emergency room, a unknown man in hospital garb drew blood from Agent Mulder. When I approached him, he took a hostage, then engaged me in a firefight, during which he made his escape.

It is my opinion that at this time Agent Mulder is out of danger. While the intentions of the compound are not known at this time. The compound has been turned over to the CDC for further study.

Respectfully Submitted,

Dana Scully

"Agent Scully, this is not acceptable."

Scully exhaled and looked at the image of her report on her laptop's screen. She imagined Skinner in DC scowling at the same report on the screen of his Deskpro. "Sir, the events as I've described actually..."

"The report is perfectly thorough. That's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to your episode in the hospital. I've been on the phone all morning with administrators and representatives of the fine city of Chicago. They frowned upon your use of force in the middle of a hospital ER."

"Sir, I..."

"Relax, agent. I argued the point persuasively. Your partner was in danger and you were taking the appropriate action to safeguard his life."

"Then I don't understand what your saying, sir."

"What I'm saying, Agent Scully, is that now is time when you substantiate my claims. You prove the threat by investigating the assault on Agent Mulder vigorously and thoroughly. I want to know how the assailant got into the Emergency Room, if there's any security camera footage, and I want you to make sure there's a guard on Agent Mulder at all times."

"Yes, sir."

Skinner signed off, and Scully replaced the phone in its cheap, plastic cradle. She looked at the spare, generic hotel room and sighed.

Dana Scully (personal log):

The next two days consisted of interviews with various hospital personnel. A Doctor Mark Greene kept me appraised of Mulder's condition. Currently, he remains unconscious due to the heavy regiment of antibiotics that have been administered to counteract the effects of his demolished immune system. At last count, his white blood-cell count was increasing optimistically.

Apparently, after Doctor Greene was brutally assaulted last year, surveillance cameras were installed around the entrances. From these I captured a number of shots of the intruder. These tapes currently are in the possession of the Video Enhancement Unit at the FBI Headquarters. I have also met with the heads of security at the hospital and arranged that a guard will be placed outside Mulder's room.

Beyond that, I have very little left to do. Still, I have endeavored to maintain a presence at the hospital. However facile it may be.

"Bum a smoke?"

Scully turned, squinted into the sunset trying to make out the figure that had asked the question. "I'm sorry?"

"A cigarette," Dr. Maggie Doyle said, stepping out of the golden glare of the sun's dying rays into the relative shade of the building. "Can I get one off you?"

"Sure," Scully replied a little more tartly than she'd intended. She tried to be extra gracious when she produced the pack and lit the Virginia Slim Doctor Doyle had parked between her lips.

"Look, I really wanted to apologize about the other day," she said on a light column of smoke. "My dad's a cop. My brothers are cops, my uncles--" she took another drag. "I was learning how to use a Chief's Special thirty-eight when I was thirteen. I think if anyone ever tried anything to me and didn't end up with at least one jacketed hollow-point in him, Dad would take it as a personal failure."

Doctor Doyle spoke quickly and frankly, exuding the adrenaline-wired energy Scully saw in most emergency medicine practitioners. Despite that, she found herself engaging the woman quite inadvertently. Usually that kind of energy pushed Scully deeper into her sheltering reserve. Competing with the boys all her life had taught her that the one edge she would always have was her glacial calm. Keeping her head while everyone around her lost theirs had helped her come out of many a bad situation on top.

But here, in the hot wind and blazing, sinking sun, Scully just didn't feel like playing the old game. There was a sense of peace and equilibrium that Doctor Doyle would probably reach if she gave her time.

"My father was in the Navy," Scully said. "He bought me a BB gun when I was six. I killed a snake with it and became inconsolable. After that I decided I wanted to be a doctor and he decided to limit the firearms training to my brothers."

"I heard you were a doctor. I meant to ask you about that," Doctor Doyle leaned against the brick wall. "What did you do your residency in?"

"Forensic pathology."

"Cool," Doctor Doyle grinned. She had a bloodthirsty grin, Scully noticed. This wasn't a woman who sat at home Friday nights with a cat and a good book. She envisioned Doctor Doyle wearing fatigues and running through the brush with a paint-ball gun. Or knocking back Dewars on the rocks and playing pool.

"I never thought of standing over a half-decomposed corpse as cool, but I guess it depends upon your perspective."

Doctor Doyle took a long drag on her cigarette and shrugged. "It's honest. I mean, everybody who goes into medicine wants to be Albert Schweitzer, you know? I mean, they say they do, but really they're in it for the money, for the ego-trip, you know? Then they get to a place like this and you realize they don't have it. Patients don't like them, they don't like the patients. They're in the wrong place. Med students never think there's any world outside of patient-care medicine. I think it really shows initiative."

"Oh?" Scully arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Doctor Doyle pushed off the wall slightly, fell back onto it, then pushed off again. "Shows you know yourself, what you want. More than most people can say."

Scully snickered dryly, remembering the rounds of indignant lectures she'd garnered after she'd made the decision to join the FBI. First from her parents--they'd alternated techniques with her father coming at her like a torpedo salvo and her mother exaggerating her nervous frailty and treating the decision as if it were a personal injury--and then from her brother and sister who followed the patterns laid down by their parents, with Melissa the only renegade. Rather than mimic the wounded-deer expression of her mother, Missy (who'd never been able to muster the same level of suffering vulnerability) had instead accused her of joining a dark "soul-draining" organization.

"You should meet my family," is all she said of it.

"Hey, my parents were freaked when I told them I wanted to be a doctor," Doctor Doyle said. "We're a good, blue-collar Irish family. Girls don't grow up to be doctors. They're nurses."

"When did they accept it?" Scully asked, suddenly genuinely curious.

"When I told them I'd be making more money than I would as a nurse," Doctor Doyle grinned. Scully shared a dry laugh with the other woman and took a long draw off her cigarette. It had burned down short, near the filter, while she'd been neglecting it.

"These aren't doing it for me," Doyle said and flicked hers onto the simmering asphalt. "Too girly."

"What do you usually smoke?"

"Marlboro 100s. They're not as potent as the regulars, but they last longer and the difference isn't real noticeable. Not as much as the Lights or the Ultra-lights."

"I don't really know much about the different brands," Scully admitted. "I don't...I don't smoke much." She managed a feeble drag, but the cigarette had burned down to the point where it felt like she was taking a hit off a joint and she tasted filter. Scully felt ridiculous and tossed the butt away. "I'm just bored," she sighed, feeling her shoulders slump.

"You mean you're not busting up some scuzzball's action on the side?" Doctor Doyle asked. Scully looked over at her and saw her splashed in the golden rays of the setting sun. She was smirking. She had a mouth for smirking, Scully noticed and allowed herself a bitter little shudder that passed for a laugh.

"Not quite," she replied dryly. Then told Doctor Doyle about her orders from Skinner, her pointless investigation into the man who she'd exchanged gunfire with. "I don't have a lot to do but hang around here waiting for Mulder to come to."

"Ever been to Chicago before?" Doctor Doyle asked.

"Only on business. Briefly."

The smirk returned. "I'm getting off in an hour, why don't let me show you around? I gotta get dinner anyway and I hate eating alone."

Scully nodded slowly. Later she would recall the sense of a threshold being crossed. With the next exchange a door was opened that she'd barely even known existed.

"Dinner with an actual human being, as opposed to a laptop or a TV, would be a nice change of pace, Doctor Doyle."

"Maggie," she smirked and extended her hand.

"Dana."

* * *

3

Agent's personal log:

We expect that we will know, that we will recognize, those moments that prove crucial to our lives even though our lives are rife with incidents and moments and encounters that affect the course of our existence both subtly and substantially.

And yet there are times when we should know. When we look back and wonder why didn't feel the wind bunching in the sails or notice the currents quickening. I wish I knew whether or not I was aware of this turning point. All of my responses and reactions would indicate that I didn't, but what kept me there indicates that I did. On some level.

We went out to eat, talked about our jobs, our interests, our internships. I know that I went out to dinner with Maggie Doyle because I was tired of sitting alone in my hotel room and the prospect of conversation with someone not under investigation was appealing to say the least. But I was surprised nonetheless at how well we hit it off. I can't say we had a lot in common, but that's what made her so fascinating to me. I saw in her what I had passed over, and found that I didn't regret my decision a bit.

It was more than that, though. Maggie was energetic, intense, confrontational. A tough blue-collar kid from a family of cops. We weren't so different, I realized. I was more refined, more disciplined, and I'd grown up with more money in the family, but I understood what it was to be a woman in a man's family. The Navy, the Chicago PD, both cadres of powerful, masculine figures. Both with their own lore and legacy, honor and tradition--all which could be passed down to the children (in particular the male children), but could only be tolerated and respected by their spouses. We talked about the difficulties of being the girl that embraced the boy's game. We talked about where you find a decent pair of shoes.

And I liked it.

I realized, maybe for the first time, that I never had another person to sympathize with me about these things. And I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed her. Maggie filled the role that I've never been able to eliminate--the same role that Mulder inhabited, taking it over from...who? There's a long list going all the way back to my father, maybe. When you've lived in your enclosed world, when you build the protective walls around you, the only way you can live is vicariously. You seek out the shadow of that person who'll do those things you would never have the courage to do. The next best thing to blazing a trail is walking the behind the person who is.

Maggie was vicious and bold and aggressive and left me wondering if some supernatural force alluded to in Mulder's dented file cabinet had exchanged the lives of me and Maggie. She was the one who should have been wearing a gun on her hip with a license to use it. I should have been working patients and she should have been kicking in doors and handcuffing suspects.

Mulder came to and was transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital for further testing to rule out any chance of the compound having affected a mutation in his DNA. I stayed in Chicago to tie up the loose ends, finish my reports, and be with Maggie. And then things took a hairpin turn and I was at that turning point. This time I knew it. I understood it.

Maggie seemed to know every blue-collar Irish bar with a pool table in Chicago, Scully reflected as she sunk into the leather seats of Maggie's BMW. The CD player was blasting Shirley Manson, but Scully was too tired to get into the music. Her ears were still ringing from the bar sounds--the pumping music, the shouted conversations--and felt dehydrated by the mixture of alcohol and nicotine. She'd been smoking more the last few days than she had since med school. She didn't even notice the smell on her clothes anymore. Maggie was showing signs of slipping into her relaxed mode, her "power-saver" mode Scully thought of it. It was when the energy undulated beneath the surface noticeably, but not overtly. Like the lapping of a lake's waves against the shore. She moved her shoulders to the music, weaving like a cobra. Scully studied her profile as she did and thought of a long-forgotten phrase her father had used to describe a model of a battleship one of her brothers was building. "Beautiful and mean," he'd said as he leaned over William's shoulder, sharing a moment of mutual enthusiasm with his son, "Nothing that says the two are mutually exclusive, son. Beautiful and mean."

Beautiful and mean. Scully pondered the phrase as she looked at Maggie's profile in the harsh lights of night. She hadn't understood what her father was referring to when she'd first heard it. As she'd grown up, though, she learned. Now, looking at Maggie, she thought here was another perfect example. She had a sharp face, Scully noticed, with a lot of planes and angles, and when she smiled, her upper lip curled back from her incisors giving her a ruthless, almost feral look.

She steered into the parking lot of Scully's mote, and that weaving profile was caught in the searing white lights and outlined as perfectly as if she'd been carved with a scalpel. Scully took in the shape of the face, the savage lines and angles. She was a mile away from Scully's own smoothly rounded curves and full, red lips reflected in her window.

"Well, here we are," Maggie said after she slid the car into a slot and killed the engine. The white lights had set and she was now caught in the glowering red of the motel's neon sign.

"I don't think I want to get out of the air-conditioning," Scully said sleepily. "The unit's not working in my room."

"Probably low on freon. A lot of the older models at these places still use the stuff. And since you can't get the stuff anymore, they just let them go dead."

Scully smiled. "So I'm in for a hot stay? Lovely."

Maggie twisted in the seat to face her, the neon glow making her face even more severe. "It's turning out to be a hot summer," Maggie said with definite pliability. "I had a good time tonight. You looked like you did, too."

"I did," Scully nodded. "It's been...God, years since I've gone out to a bar and played pool. Or even just spent some time with another person." The last sentence surprised even her; the brutal truth of it, the reality of what her work with Mulder had cost her.

"You seem lonely," Maggie said quietly.

"I never thought about it," Scully replied, still pondering the alienness of her words. Her vision was fixed but unfocussed on a point on the dashboard, so she didn't know Maggie had reached out for her until she felt the cool fingers on her jawbone. She instinctively closed her eyes at the intimacy of it, and before she realized what was happening, Maggie's lips were on hers. Scully started, gasped and felt Maggie's tongue slip into her mouth and touch hers. She pushed back. Maggie's fingers slid from her jaw around through her bobbed mane around behind her head, gently staking their claim, validating the act and the consent on both parts.

Scully broke the kiss, though more gently than she would have liked, since Maggie was smiling at her contentedly, seductively. "Maggie," she said on the inhale.

"You're not going to tell me you have to be up early tomorrow, are you?"

"Maggie...I," Scully turned her head and leaned back to dislodge the other woman's fingers. "I'm flattered, but I don't...I'm not that way."

Maggie's expression froze for an instant like an animal caught in a spotlight, then her flat eyes narrowed and her lips curled back into a bitter smile. "You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I'm...I'm straight."

"You've been staring at me all night. Didn't you think I noticed? I mean, you've been showing up on my gaydar since I pulled my piece on you. You've been like a 747 setting the thing off..."

"Look, Maggie, just because I'm in law-enforcement...I know the stereotype."

"It's not a stereotype. Most of cops I know are total dykes. And you don't fit that description anyway. You're way too fem. I'm talking about your behavior. The way you act. You've been totally scoping me out. Ever since..."

"If I gave you the wrong impression, I'm sorry. I don't socialize much, and I really enjoyed the time we've been spending together, but that's all."

"You don't date. You don't have any friends except for your partner and he doesn't even may much attention to you or your needs...what do you want here? You need to get hit with a two-by-four?"

"I don't think..."

"I don't think you even know what you want. Or you won't admit it."

Scully sighed and smiled out of exasperation. "I think I know."

"When was the last time you had a decent relationship with a man? Can you even tell me? And you can't say your partner."

Scully said nothing.

"And now here we are. A place I think you wanted to be all along."

Scully reached for the door handle. "I have to go."

"Dana..." Maggie pleaded.

She opened the door and piled out. "I'll give you a call."

"Dana!"

But Scully walked away from the car, didn't look back, and didn't slow down.

* * *

4

Her room was muggy, the air hot and stagnant. Scully opened the windows to catch what she could of the hot breeze and undressed, peeling off her heat-saturated jeans and panties and tossing them into a corner. She stood under a cold shower until her skin had cooled and she felt like she had the scent of stale cigarette smoke was washed out of her hair, then she toweled herself off slightly, wrapped the moist towel around her body and lay down on the bed. Her hair was still wet and there were beads of water dotting her flesh. She used the remote to turn on the television and tune in a syndicated sitcom. She watched for a few minutes, unable to connect with it. It was as if she was a few seconds behind on her timing and that the jokes were dull by the time she comprehended them.

After a moment, she slid the towel off of her and tossed it atop her pile of clothing. The hot wind touched her moist skin and wet hair and cooled her. She felt her nipples tighten and harden, and the sensuality of it all sent a shiver of tawdry excitement through her stomach. She lay naked and wet on a broken-in bed in a cheap motel. Her Catholic-guilt was kicking in, gathering in the corners of her mind like dark clouds. It was a good evening for it, she supposed. A night of drinking, smoking, gambling (she'd lost twenty bucks to Maggie playing pool), all topped off by a homosexual advance that she hadn't rebuked with as much moral indignation as the church would have called for. And now she lay here, naked and--based on a fleeting examination by the first two fingers of her right hand--aroused.

Scully closed her eyes and allowed her fingers to enter herself. She slid her left hand across her chest and began caressing her nipples. A small whimper tickled the back of her throat and she arched her back, lifting her hips. She pressed her thumb against her clitoris and the whimper became a gasp. Scully squeezed her eyes shut against the sensation she still felt on her lips and the back of her head and imagined a man was making love to her. She imagined him entering her, pumping and bucking against her, ejaculating. His face changed, was replaced by the various men from her past, but they never held. She tried to imagine Mulder, but it seemed wrong, incestuous. She tried to make the face that of a man she was drawn to, that she was attracted to, that she wanted to make love.

She couldn't think of any, so her imaginary lover remained faceless and unknown.

Agent's personal log:

I remember an incident--something long forgotten, buried until that evening as I lay on the hot bed, damp with the water from the shower, my sweat, my secretions. I remember what happened when I was twelve and on the threshold of puberty. I was one of the first girls in my seventh-grade class to develop. Kim Meyers, Janine Zamora, and Rachel Pfitzer also had, and we developed a sort of solidarity against the boys who, of course, didn't let that fact go unnoticed.

Rachel put up with even more attention, because she was tall and muscular, and if she wasn't exactly curvaceous, her body was at least closer to feminine than the rest of us, whose forms retained their juvenile boyishness despite our nubbing breasts. A lot of the attention was positive--Rachel was always one of the first girls asked to dance by those boys brave enough to cross the gymnasium floor from their wall to ours.

Theresa Semple was celebrating her thirteenth birthday ("I'm a teenager now!") by having a slumber party. There were fourteen of us camped out in sleeping bags in her basement rec room, talking about school and music and boys. Some people played board games. Some of us had a pillow fight. Rachel and I were in on the pillow fight and were far too wound up after it to fall asleep, so we talked and drank HiC. We changed into out nightshirts in front of one another and our bras sparked the conversation about our developing breasts and the affect they were having on the boys and the rest of our lives. How it was harder to play sports, to run. How they hurt sometimes.

I remember it as being Rachel who broached the subject of how touching them felt good. I remember it as Rachel who suggested we rub ours against each other. I remember Rachel drawing me in, slipping her fingers through my hair and holding my head.

But I don't trust my memories. Not all of them and not the way I remember it transpiring. She had frizzy, blonde hair that felt softer than mine. She had braces, too. My tongue touched them when we kissed. After our bodies began to shudder from the feel of our nipples brushing against each other.

We didn't talk about it the next day, but more because it was forgotten than for any other reason. There was no shame, no fear of public ridicule, no humiliation. Life moves quickly at that age. A week later I'd forgotten about the whole thing. Occasionally I'd remember when I'd see her running track or in the hallways of our high school. But the memories were fleeting. The lid of that box shut before anything could escape.

I replayed that memory, expanded and explored it like the Video Enhancement Unit going through a surveillance tape, frame-by-frame, raising the resolution to see better what happened, making blurry, pixelated images real and reliable and telling.

I replayed the memory and touched myself, enjoying the feel of my own body, enjoying the memory of Rachel Pfitzer's breasts against mine, the memory of Maggie Doyle's lips on mine. I enjoyed them all unashamedly.

* * *

5

Scully slept late, a fitful sleep that didn't refresh her when she awoke. She dressed in a light pair of khakis and a peasant blouse and drove out to Shedd Aqaurium. It was a weekday and attendance was light. She wandered the avenues and cul-de-sacs between the tanks in a slight stupor. At three o'clock, she watched the diver feed the fish, sharks and eels in the central tank.

After a few hours, she left and walked the rocky banks of Lake Michigan. It was a deep blue and stretched into the horizon, and Scully was reminded of every port her father had ever sailed from. She was surprised at the beauty of this simple lake. She thought that every body of water must have these same elements: the glitter of the sun across their surface as if it was layered with gold dust, the clean scent of the water, the sound of it lapping against the posts of piers and docks and the rocks of shore. When Scully remembered her father's ports, all she remembered were the ships. It was almost absurd to think that this amalgam of sensations existed as well and she'd missed it.

Scully spent a few long, contemplative moments on that bank, but she was alone and soon left. She stopped off at a take-out Chinese place and picked up some fried rice and shrimp rolls. The midday heat, which she had skipped by attending the aquarium, was breaking, though it still emanated from the buildings and pavement and Scully let the car's air-conditioner blow the smell of the Chinese around the cabin.

The motel room's door was open. Scully drew her gun and went in, holding the Chinese food behind her back. Maggie stood by the sink grinding a bottle of Wild Turkey into the ice bucket. "Are we role-playing? 'Cause you left your handcuffs in the room here."

Scully shut the door behind her. "Did you pick the lock?"

"It wasn't hard," Maggie shrugged. "I didn't think you'd talk to me if I called."

"I went by the hospital, but you'd gone already." Scully put the food down on the cheap, plastic table. "I wanted to talk about last night."

Maggie winced. "Look, I was out of line. I was wired from the bar and...I should have told you. I should have said I was a lesbian, then there wouldn't've been any misunderstanding..."

"Maggie," Scully started, then paused, took a breath, "you may not have been wrong. I told you...at dinner the other night, I told you that I almost died from brain cancer a little over a year ago."

"Yes."

"I realized...For the last ten years of my life...my entire adult life, I've been working hard. To be a doctor. To be an FBI agent. And at the end of it all, I almost die. I'm not married or in a relationship...I'm not sure I can even say that I've ever had a relationship with a man that's worked out. And I don't even question that because I'm too busy being a doctor and an FBI agent and making up for the time I lost while I was being treated for cancer..." Her gaze fixed on a point near the TV set, but she heard Maggie cross the short distance between them, and when she felt the other woman's fingers tuck her hair behind her ear, she didn't flinch.

"Dana, this doesn't have to mean anything. It can just be. It can just be whatever you want."

"I know," Scully replied in barely a whisper before she pressed her lips to Maggie's. Her kiss was wild and aggressive, unlike the previous evening's in the car. She worked her tongue against Scully's, twisted, slid her hand down to cup Scully's breast. Scully leaned into the caress, reaching out and wrapping her arms around Maggie's waist and pulling her close.

"Dana," Maggie whispered as she nuzzled her ear and ran her fingers along Scully's cheek to her lips. Scully nipped at them with her lips. Took her thumb gently between her teeth and licked the ball. The excitement was building in her again. The thrill and anxiety of the forbidden, this time defused by curiosity filling the void the shame and fear had left.

The thumb led her lips to Maggie's. Scully's hands came up instinctively and held Maggie's face. They broke. "The food'll get cold," Maggie whispered. Scully couldn't think of anything to say, so she kissed her again.

They undressed each other, then stood there for long, languid minutes, enjoying the feel of each other's flesh. Then Maggie took the initiative. "Are you nervous?" she asked, taking a step back, and letting her gaze roam unabashedly over Scully's nudity.

"Yes," Scully whispered. "I'm used to more control...I..." But she was caught by something in Maggie's eyes. A wicked sparkle.

"Then I'll take charge."

Scully felt a flutter in her chest. "What?"

Maggie's hands slid up to her shoulders. "Assume the position," she commanded.

"Are you..." But suddenly she had been spun around ninety degrees and thrust toward the wall.

"Up against the wall," Maggie hissed in her ear, as her hands patted her down. Scully put her hands against the wall and spread her legs. Maggie's hands rounded her hips and her fingers lost themselves in the tangle of her pubic hair. "You're sort of a tight-ass aren't you, Dana?" Her fingers slid into Scully, gently caressing her. Scully laughed lightly and pressed her cheek to the hot wall of the hotel room. "Well, I'll take care of that."

Maggie's fingers withdrew and a moment later, Scully felt the index finger brazenly slip into her anus. She gasped, shuddered, "Oh God!" Maggie withdrew, then slipped her middle finger into Scully and made small circles with it.

"How do you like that?" she whispered.

Scully pressed her forehead against the wall. "It's..." Adjectives screamed in her mind. Sick...Depraved...Dirty...Obscene...

"It's exquisite," she breathed, then felt Maggie's kiss on her cheek.

"So's your ass," Maggie said. Scully sensed rather than saw her kneel behind her and felt the doctor's teeth gently close on the flesh of her right cheek. "I could eat you alive."

Scully's giggle turned to a moan when Maggie's mouth closed on her. Her tongue first sliding into the cleft between her cheeks, probing at her anus, then sliding under and inside of her. She tilted her hips, allowing Maggie greater access to her sex, while she licked and sucked her index finger.

"OK," Maggie said after a few moments. "I think you're clean..."

They moved to the bed where Maggie went down on her unashamedly and enthusiastically, her lips and tongue exploring and stimulating her in ways she'd never before imagined possible. Maggie's minitrations were loving and thorough--two qualities, she'd never before experiencved when the few male lovers she'd had had attempted the same thing--her tongue lapping, then flickering, accompanied by her lips and tongue. Scully buried her hands in the thick of Maggie's hair, holding her head where she wanted it, and lifting her hips to meet Maggie's mouth.

Maggie brought her to climax almost a half-dozen times--perhaps more than she'd ever experienced in her life, she wasn't sure--and asked nothing of her. When she was spent she lay atop Maggie's hard body inhaling her mixture of scents. "That was...that was like nothing I've ever experienced. I think I want to marry you."

Maggie kissed her forehead. "And it's still early."

They took a long, cold, shower after that, holding each other close so that they both would fit beneath the cold spray. Maggie didn't let Scully dry off after the shower, but walked her out of the bathroom. They danced, naked, to Suzanne Vega, their heads on each other's shoulder's, sometimes lifting them to stare into the other's eyes or share a long kiss.

Do you know where friendship ends and passion does begin?

It's between the lining of her stockings and her skin.

Oh yeah...

When the disk ran out, Scully slid out of Maggie's wet embrace to replace it. She chose Sheryl Crow. When she turned, Maggie was sitting on the edge of the bed, affording Scully a perfect view of her taut body, haughty, upturned breasts with her erect nipples, and neatly-trimmed pubic triangle.

She didn't remember crossing the distance between them, but distinctly remembered the feel of the carpet beneath her knees and scent of Maggie's arousal. "Your turn, doctor," she whispered. "Just remember, this is my first time."

Maggie's fingers wound coils in Scully's damp hair. "Enthusiasm will take you a long way."

Scully smiled and pressed her mouth to Maggie.

She was enthusiastic, the residual guilt overshadowed by her excitement. She kissed, sucked, licked, lapped, touched, buried herself in Maggie's slippery, silkenness, surrounded herself in Maggie's scent, her wetness, her essence...

Maggie rewarded her efforts by clamping her thighs tightly around her head and bucking against her mouth. Scully felt Maggie's heels on her back. "Oh God! Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh...fuck me Special Agent Scully...Give me that pretty mouth...those full lips...Oh!"

The vulgarity of Maggie's outbursts excited Scully even more and she redoubled her efforts. She felt her confidence grow with Maggie's every word, every whimper. Scully became bolder every time Maggie spasmed. She felt sexy, powerful...

It led to more, much more, hours worth, and by the end, Scully felt as if their bodies had been built for one another, and as if she had been making love to women for years.

"You've got a bad side, Agent Scully," Maggie smirked. She was above Scully on outstretched arms, biceps bulging and her hair cascaded around her face like chocolate curtain.

"And we haven't even used my handcuffs yet."

Maggie laughed, lost her balance and let her weight fall on Scully.

"I think I'm in love."

She embraced Maggie as if she were the only thing that was real.

* * *

Thanks for reading...send me your feedback :) Adriana

<http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/1547/giland.html>


End file.
